The Pixel 8A is officially here. The 8A gets Google's latest processor, adds a bunch of new AI features, and still starts at $499 in the US. But the very best news is that the 8A adopts the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro's seven years of software support, which is just unheard of in a midrange phone. From a report: The 8A retains the same general shape and size as its predecessor. But its 6.1-inch screen gets a couple of significant updates: the top refresh rate is now 120Hz, up from 90Hz, and the panel gets up to 40 percent brighter, up to 2,000 nits in peak brightness mode. They're important upgrades, especially since the 8A's main competition in the US, the OnePlus 12R, comes with an excellent display. It comes with the same generative AI photo and video features that made a splash on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, including Best Take, Magic Editor, and Audio Magic Eraser. Circle to Search is also available, and the 8A will be able to run Google's mobile-optimized on-device AI model, Gemini Nano. As on the Pixel 8, it'll be a developer option delivered via feature drop. Other specs are either unchanged or slightly boosted compared to the last generation. There's still 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though there's now a 256GB option. Camera hardware is unchanged from the 7A, including a stabilized 64-megapixel main sensor. There's an IP67 rating, consistent with the 7A, and battery capacity is a little higher at 4,492mAh compared to 4,385mAh. Wireless charging is available via Qi 1.3 at up to 7.5W -- no Qi2 here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nintendo has said it will finally announce its Switch successor console "within this fiscal year," so at some point before March 31, 2025. From a report: In a statement published to X / Twitter, Shuntaro Furukawa, President of Nintendo, confirmed the new console as Nintendo published its financial report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. Furukawa also confirmed a Nintendo Direct for this June, but said there will be no mention of the Switch successor during that presentation. Instead, it will focus on Switch games for the latter half of 2024.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing failed to complete required inspections on 787 Dreamliner planes and whether Boeing employees falsified aircraft records, the agency said this week. The investigation was launched after an employee reported the problem to Boeing management, and Boeing informed the FAA. "The FAA has opened an investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes," the FAA said in a statement provided to Ars today. The FAA said it "is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records. At the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet." The agency added that it "will take any necessary action -- as always -- to ensure the safety of the flying public." Boeing VP Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 Dreamliner program, described "misconduct" in an April 29 email to employees in South Carolina. Boeing provided a copy of the email to Ars. "After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed," Stocker wrote. "As you all know, we have zero tolerance for not following processes designed to ensure quality and safety. We promptly informed our regulator about what we learned and are taking swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Along with introducing a new iPad Air and iPad Pro during its Let Loose event, Apple quietly killed its ninth-gen iPad -- also known as the last iPad with a headphone jack. From a report: The 10th-gen iPad is now the sole entry-level iPad in Apple's official lineup and, as such, has received a $100 price cut. Released in late 2022, the 10th-generation iPad arrived starting at $449, or about $120 more than base entry-level iPads from previous years. Apple justified the price increase with new iPad Air-like features, like a 10.9-inch screen and USB-C support.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Financial Times Alphaville: Look, we know we write a lot about Jane Street, but it's a fascinating place, and people seem interested in it. So it was hard to resist writing about the trading shop entering the mobile phone game space (kinda). Back in 2013 Jane Street developed a card game called "Figgie," which it made to simulate open outcry trading, teach trading nous, and generally burnish its reputation for quirkiness -- de rigueur in the industry. All you need are 40 cards from a normal deck, and the rules have been public for a while. During Covid, Jane Street made a virtual version for remote interns. Now it's a mobile game that's publicly available on the official Apple and Google app stores.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Motional, the autonomous vehicle startup borne out of a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and automotive supplier Aptiv, will pause its commercial operations and delay plans to launch a driverless taxi service as it undergoes a restructuring, TechCrunch reported Tuesday. From a report: The aim is make progress on the core technology and the business model, while preserving capital, according to sources familiar with the changes. Motional has pushed its plan to launch a commercial driverless robotaxi service with its second-generation AV -- the Hyundai Ioniq 5 -- to 2026, two years later than planned. The company told employees Tuesday during an all-hands meeting that the changes will include layoffs, but did not provide a figure of how many people would be affected, according to sources who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. Motional began notifying employees if they were laid off shortly after the meeting ended. The company employed more than 1,300 people prior to a 5% cut in workforce in March 2024. Motional will halt its commercial operations, which today includes taxi rides in autonomous Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in Las Vegas via the Uber and Lyft network. The company will also end deliveries for Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica using its autonomous vehicles. A human safety operator is behind the wheel in all of its commercial operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has deployed a generative AI model entirely divorced from the internet, saying US intelligence agencies can now safely harness the powerful technology to analyze top-secret information. From a report: It's the first time a major large language model has operated fully separated from the internet, a senior executive at the US company said. Most AI models including OpenAI's ChatGPT rely on cloud services to learn and infer patterns from data, but Microsoft wanted to deliver a truly secure system to the US intelligence community. Spy agencies around the world want generative AI to help them understand and analyze the growing amounts of classified information generated daily, but must balance turning to large language models with the risk that data could leak into the open -- or get deliberately hacked. Microsoft has deployed the GPT4-based model and key elements that support it onto a cloud with an "air-gapped" environment that is isolated from the internet, said William Chappell, Microsoft's chief technology officer for strategic missions and technology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Less than two weeks after President Biden signed a bill that will force TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, TikTok said it sued the federal government on Tuesday, arguing the law was unconstitutional. From a report: TikTok said that the law violated the First Amendment by effectively removing an app that millions of Americans use to share their views and communicate freely. It also argued that a divestiture was "simply not possible," especially within the law's 270-day timeline, pointing to difficulties such as Beijing's refusal to sell a key feature that powers TikTok in the United States. "For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide," the company said in the 67-page petition it provided, which initiates the lawsuit. "There is no question: The act will force a shutdown of TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025." TikTok is battling for its survival in the United States, with the fight set to play out primarily in courts over the next few months. While lawmakers who passed the bill have said the app is a national security threat because of its ties to China, the courts must now weigh those concerns against TikTok's argument that a sale or ban would violate the First Amendment free-speech rights of its users and hurt small businesses that owe their livelihood to the platform.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The identity of the leader of one of the most infamous ransomware groups in history has finally been revealed. From a report: On Tuesday, a coalition of law enforcement led by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency announced that Russian national, Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev, 31, is the person behind the nickname LockBitSupp, the administrator and developer of the LockBit ransomware. The U.S. Department of Justice also announced the indictment of Khoroshev, accusing him of computer crimes, fraud and extortion. "Today we are going a step further, charging the individual who we allege developed and administered this malicious cyber scheme, which has targeted over 2,000 victims and stolen more than $100 million in ransomware payments," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was quoted as saying in the announcement. According to the DOJ, Khoroshev is from Voronezh, a city in Russia around 300 miles south of Moscow. "Dmitry Khoroshev conceived, developed, and administered Lockbit, the most prolific ransomware variant and group in the world, enabling himself and his affiliates to wreak havoc and cause billions of dollars in damage to thousands of victims around the globe," said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger for the District of New Jersey, where Khoroshev was indicted.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company is shrinking the MCU with a new mission to drop the number of Marvel TV series to two a year and the film output to no more than three movies per year. The comment follows Iger conceding last year that Marvel had diluted audience's focus by making too many TV shows. From a report: Iger said this is part of Disney's overall strategy to reduce output and focus on quality, a strategy "that's particularly true with Marvel." "We're slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two, or a maximum of three," the Disney CEO said during the company's quarterly earnings call Tuesday. "And we're working hard on what that path is." Iger says Marvel has "a couple of good films in '25 and then we're heading to more 'Avengers,' which we're extremely excited about," adding: "Overall, I feel great about the slate. It's something that I've committed to spending more and more time on. The team is one that I have tremendous confidence in and the IP that we're mining, including all the sequels that we're doing, is second to none."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple revealed its refreshed iPad Pro lineup at its "Let Loose" virtual event Tuesday, featuring a slimmer design, OLED displays, and the company's latest M4 chip. The new 13-inch and 11-inch models boast enhanced brightness, color saturation, and contrast, with the 13-inch model measuring just 5.1 millimeters thick, making it Apple's thinnest device ever. The M4 chip, which powers the new iPad Pros, delivers a 50% faster CPU and improved efficiency compared to the previous-gen M2 chip. Apple has also introduced updated accessories, including a redesigned Magic Keyboard with an aluminum palm rest and function key row, and the Apple Pencil Pro with squeeze gestures, Find My location tracking, and haptic feedback. The switch to OLED technology ensures consistent display quality across both iPad Pro sizes, addressing the previous disparity between the 12.9-inch Mini LED model and the smaller, traditional-screen version. The base storage for both models is now 256GB, with prices starting at $999 for the 11-inch and $1,299 for the 13-inch. Both are available for preorder today and will be available in stores next week.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wesley Yin-Poole, reporting for IGN: Microsoft has closed a number of Bethesda studios, including Redfall maker Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush and The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda, IGN can confirm. Alpha Dog Studios, maker of mobile game Mighty Doom, will also close. Roundhouse Games will be absorbed by The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios. On Redfall, the disastrous vampire co-op game will now not receive promised updates as Microsoft has ended all development on the game. Microsoft said Redfall will remain online to play, and it will provide a "make-good" offer for those who bought the Hero DLC. In an email to staff sent by Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft blamed the cuts on a "reprioritization of titles and resources."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI and the developer platform Stack Overflow have announced a partnership that could potentially improve the performance of AI models and bring more technical information into ChatGPT. From a report: OpenAI will have access to Stack Overflow's API and will receive feedback from the developer community to improve the performance of AI models. OpenAI, in turn, will give Stack Overflow attribution -- aka link to its contents -- in ChatGPT. Users of the chatbot will see more information from Stack Overflow's knowledge archive if they ask ChatGPT coding or technical questions. The companies write in the press release that this will "foster deeper engagement with content." Stack Overflow will use OpenAI's large language models to expand its Overflow AI, the generative AI application it announced last year. Further reading: Stack Overflow Cuts 28% Workforce as the AI Coding Boom Continues (October 2023).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares an essay: Software designers refer to "the good enough principle." It means, simply put, that sometimes you should prioritise functionality over perfection. As a relentless imperfectionist, I'm inclined to embrace this idea. I gave this newsletter its name to encourage myself to post rough versions of my pieces rather than not to write them at all. When it comes to parenting, I'm a Winnicottian: I believe you shouldn't try to be the perfect mum or dad because there's no such thing. At work and in life, it's often true that the optimal strategy is not to strive for the optimal result, but to aim for what works and hope for the best. The good enough can be a staging post to the perfect. The iPhone's camera was a "good enough" substitute for a compact camera. It did the job, but it wasn't as good as a Kodak or a Fuji. Until it was. Technological innovation often works like this, but the improvement curve isn't always as steep as with the smartphone camera. Sometimes we allow ourselves to get stuck with a product which is good enough to displace the competition, without fulfilling the same range of needs. The psychological and social ramifications can be profound. Let's say you're a student and you use ChatGPT to write your essays for you. Give it the right prompts and it will produce pieces that are good enough to get the grade you need. That seems like a win: it saves you time and effort, presuming your tutors don't notice or don't care. Maybe you get through the whole of university this way. But be wary of this equilibrium. Over the longer term, you will be stunting the growth of your own mind. The struggle of turning inchoate thought into readable sentences and paragraphs is a powerful exercise for the brain. It's how you get better at thinking. It is thinking.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shell sold millions of carbon credits tied to CO2 removal that never took place [non-paywalled link] to Canada's largest oil sands companies, raising new doubts about a technology seen as crucial to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. FT: As part of a subsidy scheme to boost the industry, the Alberta provincial government allowed Shell to register and sell carbon credits equivalent to twice the volume of emissions avoided by its Quest carbon capture facility between 2015 and 2021, the province's registry shows. The subsidy was reduced and then ended in 2022. As a result of the scheme, Shell was able to register 5.7mn credits that had no equivalent CO2 reductions, selling these to top oil sands producers and some of its own subsidiaries. Credits are typically equivalent to one tonne of CO2. Some of the largest buyers of the credits were Chevron, Canadian Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips, Imperial Oil and Suncor Energy. Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, criticised these "phantom credits." Stewart added: "Selling emissions credits for reductions that never happened ... literally makes climate change worse." Shell said carbon capture played "an important role in helping to decarbonise industry and sectors where emissions cannot be avoided" and that realising its potential "requires creating market incentives now." Alberta's environment ministry said the crediting support scheme had not resulted in "additional emissions" by industrial polluters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems. From a report: North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases. The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past. Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes, and said it risked "everything going downhill." They urged the authority to retain them. Sam, a postal worker in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, told the BBC that signs missing an apostrophe -- such as the nearby St Mary's Walk sign that had been erected in the town without it -- infuriated her. "I walk past the sign every day and it riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation," she said. Though the updated St Mary's sign had no apostrophe, someone had graffitied an apostrophe back on to the sign with a marker pen, which the former teacher said was "brilliant." She suggested the council was providing a bad example to children who spend a long time learning the basics of grammar only to see it not being used correctly on street signs. Dr Ellie Rye, a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of York, said apostrophes were a relatively new invention in our writing and, often, context allows people to understand their meaning. "If I say I live on St Mary's Walk, we're expecting a street name or an address of some kind." She said the change would matter to people who spend a long time teaching how we write English but that it was "less important in [verbal] communication."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is streamlining the process of setting up two-factor authentication (2FA). From a report: Instead of entering your phone number first to enable 2FA, you can now add a "second step method" to your account such as an authenticator app or a hardware security key to get things set up. This should make it safer to turn on 2FA, as it lets you avoid using less secure SMS verification. You can choose to enter a time-based one-time passcode through apps like Google Authenticator, or you can follow the steps to link a hardware security key.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new breed of audiobook is taking over digital bookshelves -- ones narrated not by professional voice actors, but by artificial intelligence voices. It's an AI audiobook revolution that has been turbo-charged by Amazon. From a report: Since announcing a beta tool last year allowing self-published authors to generate AI "virtual voice" narrations for their ebooks, over 40,000 AI-narrated titles have flooded onto Audible, Amazon's audiobook platform. The eye-popping stat, revealed in a recent Bloomberg report, has many authors celebrating but is also raising red flags for human narrators. For indie writers wanting to crack the lucrative audiobook market without paying hefty professional voiceover fees, Amazon's free virtual narration tool is a game-changer. One blogger cited in the report claimed converting an ebook to audio using the AI narration took just 52 minutes, bypassing the expensive studio recording route. Others have mixed reactions. Last month, an author named George Steffanos launched an audiobook version of his existing book, posting that while he prefers human-generated works to those generated by AI, "the modest sales of my work were never going to support paying anyone for all those hours of narration."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Poor countries must demonstrate clearer accounting and transparency to back up their calls for trillions of dollars of climate finance, the president of global climate negotiations has said. From a report: Mukhtar Babayev, the ecology minister of Azerbaijan, who will lead the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, urged governments in developing countries to draw up reports showing their progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and their spending on the climate crisis. "It's very important to build this correct, good and honest trust between the parties," he said in an interview in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. "It's a very, very important step, the creation of a transparency mechanism between the countries." At Cop29 in Baku, countries will be expected to come up with a new global goal on supplying climate finance to poorer countries, to help them cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. Some governments from the global south are calling for the sums to reach more than $1tn a year. These pledges are expected to be subject to bitter wrangling at Cop29, as rich countries are unlikely to agree to provide anything like such sums from their taxpayers but the role of other sources of finance -- such as the private sector -- is still in question.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.